Sesame Chicken Pasta (Potluck Perfect Cold or at Room Temp!)

Dinner, Pasta, To Try

Source:

Ingredients

YOU WILL NEED:

1 box whole-wheat rotini OR 1 bag egg noodles

2 tbs sesame seeds

1/2 c EVOO

1/3 c soy sauce

2 Tbs honey

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/3 c white wine vinegar

approx. 3 c chopped chicken (I do 2 breasts and shred them; *see note below)

a few huge handfuls of torn spinach (we served ours over arugula instead)

Directions

cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until barely tender tender. Drain and rinse in cold water

In a small frying pan, combine sesame seeds and 1/4 cup of the EVOO. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring until seeds are golden (approx 2 mins-watch closely! they burn FAST!)

Combine sesame seeds, remaining 1/4 c EVOO, soy sauce, vinegar, honey, S&P and stir well to combine.

Pour over the cooked pasta.

Add chicken, toss.

Add spinach and toss gently until combined.

Cover and chill (or just let it sit on the counter). It gets better the longer it sits.

This time I added just to try something new and because I’m feeling all the summer feels and it was a delicious little addition.

*(I am also adding this under meatless category because the flavor is so amazing you could easily leave out the chicken and add almonds. I have done this before for a picnic lunch and it was amazing.)

Notes

*A note on cooking the chicken: you can poach the chicken, cube it then saute it in some of the sauce, use a rotisserie chicken, whatever you like. I often cook the chicken in the crock pot with a small amount of this dressing then shred it. Doing it this way left the chicken extra juicy and flavorful and I could simply “set it and forget it” for four hours on LOW. I poured the shredded chicken along with the juice in the crock pot onto the pasta and stirred. I then added as much dressing as I felt like it needed. I think next time I will try doing the saute method with my new Wok. I am going to let the chicken marinate in some of the juice then cook it stovetop!